The current exhibit at the Ucross Art Gallery “Celebrating Complexities,” is on view through May 17.

The exhibition features art by the 2022 and 2023 recipients of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists, including Gerald Clarke (Cahuilla Band of Indians) of Anza, California; Savannah LeCornu (Tsimshian, Haida, and Nez Perce) of Bellingham, Washington; Mikayla Patton (Oglala Lakota Nation) of State College, Pennsylvania; and Cara Romero (Chemehuevi Indian Tribe) of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

William Belcher, Ucross President and Executive Director said this about the artists whose works are on display.

The exhibition is guest curated by Brenda Mallory (Cherokee Nation) of Portland, Oregon, a recipient of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists in 2018, the first year of the program.

Savannah LeCornu

He said that what they have is a mix, more established artists along with very emerging young artists like Savannah LeCornu “You get a little bit of everything here, it shows the arc of our award winners in this fellowship. That’s always nice to see. The winner of those awards are not always one type of artists in one type of their career. They come from a wide variety.”

Display by Mikayla Patton some of the materials were gathered around Ucross

Belcher added that some of the artwork was created while the artists were at Ucross. He mentioned the artwork by Mikayla Patton.

Cara Romero

Belcher talked about the upcoming reception on May 3, there will be an artist’s panel with some of the artists and the curator at Sheridan College at 11 a.m., and then at 6 p.m. there will be a reception at the Ucross Art Gallery, and some of the artists will be on site as well. The talk and reception are free and open to all. Ucross Chef Jackie Vitale will craft many of her tasty creations for all to enjoy.

Work by Gerald Clarke

The exhibit closes in Ucross on May 17, but it will travel to the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana, from June 21 – October 6.

Belcher talked about some upcoming events at Ucross this summer.

The Ucross Art Gallery Hours are Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the Ucross Cafe, located inside the art gallery, is open Wednesday – Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Details

By Native News Online Staff

April 02, 2024

Olympic Gold medalist Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota) announced that Running Strong for American Indian Youth will host the SACRED Arts Festival in Sacramento on Saturday, April 13, and Sunday, April 14. Mills said the arts festival will celebrate Native American arts and culture in the region.

“Our traditions and our culture are passed down through generations through art,” Mills said. “Sacramento and northern California have beautiful tribal communities, but Native people often lack representation and visibility. This event will bring the entire community together, Native and non-Native alike, to celebrate the diversity of our Indigenous art and culture.”

The SACRED Arts Festival will be held at Cesar Chavez Park, in the heart of Sacramento. The two-day event will include live mural painting, artist vendor booths, film screenings,live musical performances, and food and beverage.

“Native artists are valuable contributors to the contemporary American art world and protectors of their traditions and culture. Running Strong is proud to support Native American artists and Northern California tribal communities,” states Sydney Mills-Farhang (Oglala Lakota), Executive Director of Running Strong.

After winning the 10,000-meter race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in an upset, come-from-behind victory, Mills used his fame to raise millions of dollars to improve the lives of Native Americans, particularly Native youth. He co-founded Running Strong for American Indian Youth in 1986 to help support Native youth and their communities through clean water access, food sovereignty and security, culture and language revitalization, and more.

Click here for more information about the SACRED Native Arts Festival. Additional information about Running Strong can be found at www.IndianYouth.org.

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Fabulous fashion spreads open “Native America: In Translation,” a thoughtful and wide-ranging group show of nine Indigenous artists at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Slim, sexy models wear chic clothes, posed against backdrops ranging from a tropical paradise to the white non-space of a commercial studio.

Look carefully, though, and the glossy veneer cracks. The dark-haired mannequins appear to be the same woman throughout, and her makeup goes beyond avant-garde to bizarre. That lush jungle is just a backyard with exotic animals pasted on. An ad for knee-high mod boots seems to be selling flexible notions of identity in addition to patent-leather footwear. And there are a surprising lot of traditional textiles on view, too. Vogue Latinoamérica this is not.

The series is the work of Martine Gutierrez, a queer artist of Mayan heritage who staged, styled, modeled and in every other way created these images, originally publishing them alongside dozens of others in “Indigenous Woman,” her 128-page parody of women’s fashion magazines.

Such self-presentation — of identity, but also of history, daily practices, inspiration and surroundings — is at the heart of “Native America: In Translation.” Who points the camera is key. The traveling show originated as a special issue of the legendary photography journal Aperture, copies of which serve as the MoCPS’s de facto catalog. Inside is some fascinating work unfortunately not up in the galleries, including historical community portraiture by Richard Throssel and Horace Poolaw that provides artistic precedent for the contemporary artists on view. Also missing is Syilx Nation artist Krista Belle Stewart’s immersion in the bizarre world of “Indianthusiasm,” German hobbyists who reenact Native American crafts and rituals during weeklong summer camps, and the piercingly annotated archival materials and decorated snapshots of Wendy Red Star, the Apsáalooke artist who guest edited Aperture 240 and also curated the exhibition.

Aperture had done something similar in 1995, dedicating its summer edition to Native American photographers and writers. Omaskêko Ininiwak artist Duane Linklater was impacted by the copy he had then and intervenes in it here, in the imperturbable series “ghostinthemachine.” Choice pages of the periodical are torn out, folded, sketched on and then scanned, in configurations that allow Linklater plenty of leeway. He highlights a cuttingly sage paragraph by Paul Chaat Smith and a witty self-portrait by Zig Jackson, makes his own contributions via overlaid geometric line drawings, and keeps some things neatly tucked away. Not everything can or should be revealed to everyone.

Nalikutaar Jacqueline Cleveland, an Alaskan native of Yup’ik descent, addresses an extension of this question — how and for whom to photograph the people, places and practices of a community — in her 2019 series, “Ethnobotany Project.” She notes that the intended audience for this work, which forms part of a study funded by the National Science Foundation about variations in diet among Native communities on either side of the Bering Strait and the impact of climate change on their foraging traditions, are local people and students in the field. A small selection of Cleveland’s images shows what might matter to them: a blackberry specimen, labeled in Yup’ik; a 90-year-old elder of Toksook Bay, at home in her qaspeq tunic, bulk cases of Cup Noodles ramen stacked nearby; a mom and her two kids foraging for wild beach greens in Quinhagak; the breathtaking vista and modest structures of Umkumiut, a seasonal hunting and fishing camp. Between the lines of these documentary pictures can be read a text about survival, resistance and negotiation — of traditional language, dress and subsistence practices that continue today, as part of contemporary lives.

Somewhere between documentary and performance stands three immensely powerful images by Rebecca Belmore, a Lac Seul First Nation artist celebrated since the 1990s for artworks orchestrated both for live audiences and for the camera. In “nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations),” she restages key moments from her repertoire, creating striking portraits linked to the lives of Native women real and mythical. “Matriarch” sits with her back to the viewer, face in profile, black hair tumbling down a cloak of blood-red roses hemmed with brown fur. In “keeper,” a woman intently washes the floor with a clay-soaked rag; it stains her garments and becomes the cracked ground on which she kneels. Stories can’t help but attach themselves to these women, stories that recognize their strength, their labor, their centrality and their pain.

By far the most approachable works in “Native America: In Translation” are the exquisitely sincere but never humorless explorations of identity produced by Kimowan Metchewais. The Cree artist amassed a huge personal archive of Polaroids, which he shot, organized, and often cut up, taped together and rephotographed to make small and large-scale artworks. Everything of his at the MoCP is a revelation: a glowing, surreal panorama of himself and his brother fishing while immersed in the infinite blue ripples of Cold Lake, the namesake body of water of their nation; self-portraits in a white tank top, blue jeans and endless hair extensions; Polaroids of his right hand making simple gestures, some with words written underneath, referencing Native traditions of sign language but also, having been erased and rewritten, likely of his own concoction.

Metchewais died in 2011 from a brain tumor at age 47. Like him, we all, whatever our heritage, ultimately must take some charge in our own creation — out of historical traditions, communal norms, but also our own invention.

Lori Waxman is a freelance critic.

“Native America: In Translation” runs through May 12 at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 South Michigan Avenue; more information at 312-369-8067 or mocp.org/exhibition/native-america-in-translation

The stone carving depicted a bear grasping a fish in its mouth, its supposed authenticity sealed with the engraved name of its Tlingit artist, Kilit. It was sold at a shop in Ketchikan that catered to the millions of cruise ship tourists who pass through this coastal town eager to bring home a piece of coastal Alaska. The price: US$3,200.

But Kilit did not exist, and the carving did not originate in Alaska. It was made in the Philippines, as part of a sophisticated operation that, for many years, stocked two shops in Ketchikan with humpbacks, bears, dolphins and eagles sculpted 10,000 kilometres away.

The arrest of the family accused of misrepresenting the sale of Indigenous-made goods, a violation of the U.S. Indian Arts and Crafts Act, marks a milestone in the prosecution of a crime that, for many decades, has had little enforcement. It comes at a moment when Indigenous groups in the United States are taking new interest in enforcing artistic traditions they see as their intellectual property, with lucrative potential.

The case has underscored the potential effectiveness of a unique U.S. law designed to protect Indigenous-made art, a law nearly a century old.

It has also brought to the fore the complexity of enforcing rules based on artistic identity, and the limitations of legislation without enforcement.

According to the U.S. Attorney, Cristobal Rodrigo, the real identity behind Kilit, began to teach Alaskan art styles to Filipino artists beginning a quarter-century ago, in 1998. He and his wife, Glenda, then formed a company in the Philippines that manufactured carvings and totem poles and shipped them to the U.S., where his store staff told customers, including undercover federal agents, they were made by local artists.

The stone was marble rather than soapstone, the wood mahogany instead of cedar. But the designs were often well crafted, and the price negotiable. Tourists bought pieces by the hundreds.

Mr. Rodrigo is now serving a two-year sentence in an Oregon prison, in what the U.S. Justice Department called a “monumental sentence” that is the longest of its kind in U.S. history. His wife and son, Christian, await sentencing later this year. An employee, Jessie Reginio, was ordered to pay a fine for calling himself an Indigenous carver named Sonny. At least three others have been charged.

“It’s good to see the powers of the state are being activated, as they should have been for almost 100 years now, to use this law,” said Jacob Adams, an attorney who has worked with Sealaska Heritage Institute, a non-profit dedicated to furthering the cultures of Alaska’s Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.

“It’s nice. Is it making an impact on the market? No.”

The drafters of the U.S. Indian Arts and Crafts Act, first enacted in 1935, were concerned that rampant theft of Indigenous designs and motifs could “lead to the loss of entire peoples and cultures. And that’s not hyperbole,” said Mr. Adams. The law, updated in 1990, mandates truth in advertising: Art must be made by Indigenous hands if it is marketed that way.

For much of its existence, however, it has been little enforced. A 2011 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that from 2006 to 2010, 649 complaints were made to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, which concluded that 150 appeared to be violations of law. It referred 117 of those to law enforcement, “but no cases were filed in federal court as a result.” No one knows the size of the market for such art, nor the extent of misrepresented works, the report found.

The years since have brought some new enforcement. In 2019, two men in Albuquerque, N.M., pleaded guilty to selling jewellery fashioned in the Philippines and agreed to US$300,000 in fines, as well as community service hours. In 2021, a Juneau man forfeited carvings worth more than US$1.5-million and was fined for selling Philippines-made art. Last year, a man selling art near Seattle’s Pike Place Market was sentenced to 18 months of federal probation after misrepresenting himself for a decade as a member of the Nez Perce peoples.

Indigenous organizations have contemplated more assertive action. Sealaska is moving toward an “offensive approach,” said Lee Kadinger, the institute’s chief operating officer. Lawyers have begun to examine the potential for trademark and copyright claims to certain designs. Civil suits, however, can be expensive.

Building recognition of intangible properties amounts to a new frontier in assertion of Indigenous rights. First came steps to secure land and resources. “But there’s only so much land. There’s only so much natural resources,” Mr. Adams said. Indigenous intellectual property – culture and artistic traditions – provides the potential for “unlimited economic growth and economic foundation for Indigenous groups.”

But fakes, like those that were being sold in Ketchikan, have proliferated. Mr. Rodrigo, according to a charging document, formed a company in the Philippines in 2003 to manufacture carvings. Work on the totems began in 2015. The family did a robust business. The imported carvings were cheap, but sold for thousands. In one year alone, they made at least US$1-million in sales, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Schmidt.

Other local vendors were furious, but powerless. “Look at the money he’s making. Unbelievable profit margin there, it’s hard to fathom,” said Michael Peters, who owns Scanlon Gallery in Ketchikan. It features works from 120 Indigenous artists.

Indigenous art sales in southeastern Alaska total tens of millions of dollars a year, Mr. Schmidt told the sentencing hearing last year for Mr. Rodrigo. But knockoffs are “way more widespread than your typical white-collar offence,” he said. “Half the businesses probably misrepresent at some point or another to make a sale.”

At the hearing, Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida, removed his shirt to show his traditional tattoos. “This tells you who I am,” he told the court. “Our art is everything to us. It’s not just symbols. They are not just items.”

Tlingit totem carver Wayne Price, who teaches at University of Alaska Southeast, was among those who spoke to the court. The visual traditions of the northwest peoples are “hallowed ground,” he said in an interview. “Our art is our culture and it belongs to us.” Yet deciding who can legitimately make that art, he said, is not simple. His students include people who are not Indigenous. “I know a lot of non-natives doing art, and they’re my friends. We’ve done a lot of art together. Is that right or is that wrong?”

In Ketchikan, the Totem Heritage Center displays work by Nathan Jackson, a Tlingit man who lives in Ketchikan and is celebrated as one of Alaska’s most influential Indigenous artists. It also includes an intricate Chilkat robe woven by Mr. Jackson’s wife, Dorica. She is not Indigenous, but is credited with being one of the first contemporary weavers to complete such a robe, at a time when that art form was considered all but extinct.

Mr. Jackson, 85, has personal experience with fakes. Counterfeit jewellery bearing his name has appeared in Ketchikan. Early in his career, he remembers trying to sell small totem poles to shops, only to be turned away. His finely-honed creations were too expensive and so well-crafted they made other work look bad.

“It was a lot of trials trying to do my own work,” he said. Years later his art, now coveted, is displayed at the local airport, on city property, in totem parks and in local hotels.

Yet he preaches caution about aggressively targeting work produced by people based on meeting a standard of Indigenous identity. One of his own ancestors is Black. “I can’t be discriminatory and I would like to stay that way. Because to me, it makes sense to not stir the water,” Mr. Jackson said. “For me, it’s one of those things where you wrestle water, it gets pretty rough.”

Even sales staff selling Mr. Rodrigo’s Philippines-made art were native Alaskans.

The family’s two Ketchikan stores are now closed. Some of their art, however, remains on display. At Tom’s Treasures, bears and whale tail carvings sit on glass shelves, some signed with the false Kilit name used by Mr. Rodrigo.

Shop owner Tam Rayner is quick to tell a visitor they are made in the Philippines, saying Mr. Rodrigo fooled her, too, about their origins. If she lies about where they come from, “I’m finished,” she said. But customers lose interest when they discover the pieces are foreign-made.

“I can’t sell them,” Ms. Rayner said.

Ken Decker, a Tsimshian carver who owns the Crazy Wolf Studio down the street, welcomes the scare caused by recent enforcement, although he doubts it will last. “As soon as things cool off, people will go back to their old ways again,” he said.

He regularly confronts inauthentic art, often in the hands of customers demanding to know why his goods, like the drum he was painting on a recent afternoon, are so much more expensive.

“It’s killing me, all that fake stuff,” he said. “There’s so much junk out there.”

Few places around the world hold such an astonishing collection of Native American art as the American Southwest. This region is the ancestral home to several nations and Indigenous Peoples who have created award-winning and renowned spaces for visitors to enjoy their traditional and contemporary art. Below, you’ll find some of the best locations in the Southwest to experience the region’s deep-rooted Indigenous art and culture. From the heavenly open spaces of Monument Valley to the well-curated museums of Santa Fe, the American Southwest is an art lover’s paradise.

8. Indigenous Art at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture

An incredible museum dedicated to Native American art is right in the center of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Located on the famous Museum Hill, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture houses around 70,000 works by Native American artists, making it one of the largest Indigenous Art collections in the world. Inside the beautiful building, you’ll find revolving exhibits and galleries from thousands of years of Native American art history from the southwest to brand-new contemporary art. The museum hosts workshops, events, and outreach programs that help preserve, educate, and foster new talent in the southwest’s Indigenous communities and beyond.

The museum was built from a $2.7 million fund from the state of New Mexico in 1977. It was conceived as a way to showcase the impressive indigenous art collection of the nearby Laboratory of Anthropology, which at the time was the most comprehensive and methodically gathered collection of anthropological artifacts from New Mexico and the Southwest. The museum officially opened its doors in 1987.

On top of the revolving collections are weekly events like lectures, workshops, speeches, and live art demonstrations. Every third Wednesday of each month, the museum’s knowledgeable curators meet the public to identify any local Indigenous art pieces or artifacts that people bring in. Other fun activities include live music during community days and dances.

7. Heard Museum

Few museums dedicated to native American art can top Pheonix’s Heard Museum. Since 1929, this beautiful space has showcased works by Indigenous artists and worked to champion their work through educational programs and various events. A visit to the Heard Museum will take you through twelve galleries and a courtyard that hosts events and art festivals throughout the year. There are around 44,000 pieces of art, many of which go on display during the rotating seasonal exhibitions.

Dwight Bancroft Heard and Maie Bartlett Heard founded the museum in 1929 to house their enormous collection of global Indigenous art. After Dwight Heard’s death that same year, Maie Heard continued running the museum until she died in 1951. Since then, it has outgrown its place as a museum and become one of the great centers preserving classic pieces and fostering new modern artists and their work.

If you visit the museum in March, you can attend the annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market. This special event is one of the world’s leading art markets for Indigenous works. You can buy all sorts of pieces from over 500 Indigenous artists and enjoy food and beverages prepared by local businesses. Ticket sales go directly to the not-for-profit Heard Museum.

6. Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

Few cities in the United States have as many museums, galleries, and education centers dedicated to Native American art and artists as Santa Fe. One of the most celebrated museums to see modern Indigenous art is the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. The museum and its parent organization, The Institute of American Indian Arts, aim to be the top organization promoting indigenous arts and cultures around the world. The museum supports artists by hosting education fellowships, residencies, workshops, and events to give talented Indigenous artists access to materials and a platform for success.

On top of the cultural and educational leadership, the museum features a rotating exhibit of local and international Indigenous artists. Almost 10,000 works by artists such as Jean LaMarr, Lloyd Kiva, Lynnette Haozous, and many others are displayed inside. Once you enter the museum, the amount of fine art and priceless modern collections will ensure you stay for several hours. From film, ceramics, and paintings, to other traditional mediums like jewelry and sculptures, there’s an endless amount of art to experience.

5. Red Earth Art Center

Located in the heart of bustling Oklahoma City is the Red Earth Art Center. This special non-profit is one of the best places to see and buy Native American modern and traditional art. There are several galleries Inside the art center that feature a rotating selection of local and national Indigenous artists. You’ll find everything from travel-size hand-carved pieces to murals, textiles, and sculptures, all available for purchase.

On top of its incredible collection of Native American masterpieces is its world-famous festival known as the Red Earth Festival. This hugely popular festival is held every year in June and features powwows, art exhibits, competitions, and fun for the whole family. Tribes, nations, and artists from around the country come to take part in the exciting cultural event.

Another popular festival held at the center is FallFest, a public celebration of Oklahoma City Indigenous People’s Day. If you’re visiting the center during this October festival, you’ll get to experience parades, art shows, powwows, and dancing, with plenty of art vendors selling their work.

4. Taos Pueblo, New Mexico

Nestled in the arid and alluring foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains you will find Taos Pueblo and the modern city of Taos right next to it. The small town is one of the oldest communities in the United States, with a recorded history of over a thousand years. Amongst the Puebloan architecture and desert landscapes are well-curated art galleries and markets. You can purchase works by some of the region’s top Indigenous artists and see some of the most stunning architecture and facades in the United States.

Nearby in Taos City, which was founded in the 17th century by the Spanish, you can visit dozens of art museums and markets dedicated to the region’s Native American artists. Establishments such as the Millicent Rogers Museum feature huge collections of local Indigenous art.

Downtown Taos is full of art markets and vendors throughout the year. Perusing the center of town, you’ll meet local artists and find incredible pieces around every corner. Every autumn, you can experience the annual Taos Fall Arts Festival where hundreds of local artists come to share their work. There is also music, food, and cultural festivities.

3. Monument Valley

Few regions in the Lower 48 are as mesmerizing and energetic as Arizona and Utah’s Monument Valley. This stunning landscape is full of natural wonders, towering red-rock formations, and a long Indigenous history. Many travelers to Monument Valley will marvel at the natural scenery, only to find the cultural wonders even more breathtaking. The valley is home to the Navajo Tribal Park, a large stretch of Navajo land that’s full of sacred spaces.

The best place to find local Navajo artists and art vendors is along the shoulder viewpoints of Highway 163. Here, you can find exquisite handmade carvings, jewelry, paintings, and everything in between.

If you want to look at the area’s historical sacred art, you can book a tour that will take you deep into the valley. Expert guides will take you through the ancestral spaces and geologic marvels covered in ancient polygraphs. For anyone interested in art history, this tour is an absolute must.

2. Salt River Art Trail

Just a few minutes east of the big city of Phoenix is Scottsdale, Arizona’s Salt River Art Trail. This trail starts at the Talking Stick Entertainment District and continues along Pima Road, through the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Here, members of the Maricopa and Pima People run several galleries and art stores that showcase their traditional art.

You’ll find incredible photography, paintings, sculptures, and displays by local artists like Dwayne Manual, Anthony Collins, Jeffrey Fulwilder, and many more. Starting at the Talking Stick Entertainment District, you’ll see the Fulwilder’s popular exhibitions at the Pima Center and Dwayne Manuel’s Gifts of a River at the Discover Salt River Visitor Center. Just down the road is the Arizona Boardwalk, where you can find beautiful works by Jacob Butler before looping down to the Talking Stick Resort to experience a revolving collection from local artists.

Further south, head to the Residence Inn by Marriott and the Courtyard by Marriott to see pieces by Collins and Fulwilder. From here, end your tour at the fantastic Huhugam Ki Museum. Here, you can check out traditional architecture and a community garden outside and weavings, paintings, and pottery inside the well-curated museum.

1. Indigenous Art at the Hopi Arts Trail

In the high desert of northern Arizona, there is a 70-mile stretch of State Route 264 known as the Hopi Arts Trail. This beautiful drive is home to Hopi artists and art galleries that sell and showcase Hopi artworks. The trail starts in the town of Moenkopi on State Route 264, just past Tuba City, AZ. From here you’ll pass traditional homes, many of which have home galleries and roadside shops. Here, you can find all kinds of traditional hand-made Hopi art like Katsina carved dolls, baskets, silverwork, and traditional pottery.

Although you can drive alone, it’s advisable to hire a local guide who will educate you about Hopi culture and introduce you to local artists. You can find guides at the Moenkopi Legacy Inn. The Hopi Reservation stretches out over 1.6 million acres in beautiful northern Arizona. The trail offers many local artists a chance to sell their artworks and educate visitors about their culture, history, and way of life. For visitors, it’s a chance to learn about the Hopi People and support their artists.